I was at some point going to write a big, long, antiOlympic rant here, but I think I’ll skip taking the time. (I’m not against athletics or human achievement, but I miss what nations have to do with it. The Olympics pits nation against nation, and that’s how it’s tracked. It’s filled with ugly politics, as nations compete for propoganda victories on something besides how well they treat their residents and their neighbors.) I don’t watch the games, and wish they weren’t happening.
But that doesn’t mean that I can’t find amusement in some of the numbers that come out of it. I got a laugh when a radio story the other day pointed out that at the 2004 games, the gold medal-winning softball team outscored their opponents by a total of 51 to 1. That’s, well, rubbing it in to the whole world.
But for me, that got topped by realizing that this swimmer guy who has 7 gold medals at this point? That’s more than 180-some countries combined.
